


Hearts a Mess

by ariad



Category: Morning Glories
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Animal Death, Blood and Gore, F/F, Murder, Unrequited, Vivisection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 12:07:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2347913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariad/pseuds/ariad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We loved each other, just never at the same time." Four lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hearts a Mess

**Author's Note:**

> written for [beth's prompt](http://blevins.livejournal.com/28803.html?thread=493443#t493443) over at the ficathon

******three.**

"I just don't get your fixation," Zoe drawled. She dropped her cigarette into the dirt and crushed it beneath one Angela Scott metallic cap-toe champagne and gold Oxford. They were her favorite pair of flat shoes and had been much too expensive for her—but not too expensive for Mark. It was a shame he got too clingy and had to be dropped.

She and Irina were at their usual spot, beneath the shade of an oak tree in the park behind Macondo Preparatory School. The air smelled of newly soaked earth, cigarette smoke, and a fresh kill. Irina was crouched over the bird she had sunk from the sky by launching a stone through the air as blithely as a child would skip a rock. Her fingers were now knuckle-deep in its open belly, prying wide its delicate ribs. "My fixation with watching beautiful things die?" Irina asked. "Zoe, I thought you of all people would understand."

"No," said Zoe, rolling her eyes, "not that. Your fixation with that _boy_. He isn't good for anything. He doesn't have any money, and he's too much of a goody-two-shoes to do your assignments for you."

"Hmm, perhaps I want to go on dates," Irina said, and Zoe laughed. She knelt on the grass beside her friend and threw her arms around her shoulders. "Why would you need a boy, then?" she hissed into Irina's ear.

It was Irina's turn to laugh, a sound Zoe loved, like a song or falling water, but it came now more dismissive than playful. Irina gently extricated herself from Zoe, smearing blood stripes onto the other girl's arms. "You are funny, my friend, but save your flirtations for Mark, yes?"

"I dropped Mark," said Zoe.

"Then on whomever else you have laid your sights. Now, do you want to watch me tear out its heart?"

As she returned her attentions to the bird, Irina alone held Zoe's: the stark black frame of her hair against her features when she leaned forward, the fluttering movements of her lashes, the cruel curve of her lips when she plucked the bird's heart between her fingers—and crushed it.

 

 

**two.**

"Shhhh, shhhhhh, you are killing the mood," Irina said to the man Zoe was vivisecting. They had picked up the lonely bastard in the parking lot of a club, lured him back to their studio apartment, and bound him hand, foot, and mouth with duct tape before gifting him the gaping chest wound into which Zoe’s fingers were wiggling. They straddled him—Zoe on his waist and Irina on his arms above his head—atop a queen-sized mattress salvaged from the balcony of neighbors who clearly had no use for it, the perfect size for two runaways from the foster system. It was well-worn and even now squeaked beneath Irina's knees, but like the rest of the rundown residence in which it lay, it was theirs.

"You're _sure_ the neighbors aren't home?" Zoe asked as the man continued to scream through sealed lips; he hadn't stopped since before Zoe first cut into him. Zoe had offered Irina a go at him, but Irina had shaken her head, content to watch Zoe perform. She became someone else when she killed: a goddess trapped in human flesh, and only through a blood sacrifice could she for a moment be set free.

"They are all at work or on vacation," Irina confirmed. "I triple-checked." She placed Zoe's prized and bloodied knife in her outstretched hand, and Zoe plunged it in beside her other arm, sawing up and down.

"Good. It’s about to get quieter in here anyway." The man's yelling rose in pitch, higher and higher, until it stopped altogether. His eyes rolled up in his head, and Zoe settled back and sighed through glossy lips. She grinned at Irina, and Irina leaned forward over the body to brush the hair out of Zoe's face. Zoe wiped her blade on the corpse's shirt, then pulled her other hand out of the its chest. With it came a heart, bright crimson and dripping, the blood uniting it with Zoe's equally red forearm. She held it toward Irina. "For you, babe," she said. "Happy Valentine's Day."

Irina's own heart quickened when she took it in her hands. "You are such a romantic," she said.

"Darling, you make me this way."

That was as good a sign as any. Irina placed a hand on the back of Zoe's head—(she heard Zoe's breath hitch, watched her smile falter and the nervousness enter her eyes)—and pulled her in to kiss her.

As soon as Irina's lips touched hers, Zoe stiffened and pulled back, eyes wide.

"I– I am sorry," Irina said. "I thought–"

"I was just kidding around," Zoe said. "I mean–" She furrowed her brow, not looking at Irina. "Look, I don't want to ruin a good thing. Let's just, ugh, let's just get rid of the body and forget about this, okay?"

"Okay," Irina said. She stuffed the heart back into the gaping meat block.

 

**one.**

"What are you doing, Irina?" Zoe asked. The silencer barrel pointed at her didn't come as a surprise, not exactly, but she couldn't help the ice that slithered down into her stomach and up into her throat. She and Irina were facing off on a rooftop about halfway between their mark and their house. They were partners, in more ways than one, and had come this far with diamonds in their pockets and stars in their eyes but the only thing that shone in Irina's eyes now was callous enterprise.

"Silly little lovelorn girl,” Irina said. “You always see only what you want to see."

(She saw the freckles on Irina's back last night, traced the distance between the one on her right shoulder blade to the one on her left hip and down to the dip of her spine, connecting them like a constellation. She saw the hunger in Irina's eyes when she turned around and grinned, knifelike, and placed her hand around Zoe's throat.)

"You and I were never going to last," Irina continued. "Why on earth would I split the take when I could instead have it all?"

("I just want _stuff_ ," Zoe said. "I don't know. Maybe I'll collect something extravagant because I can. Maybe I'll collect rare art pieces on the black market. What about you?"

"I am more interested in the _game_. After all," Irina said, drawing Zoe close by the hips, "I already have everything I want.")

"Goodbye, Zoe," said Irina, but Zoe was faster than her trigger finger.

Zoe leapt to the right. The bullet caught her shoulder, and pain lanced hot and sharp through the left side of her body, but Zoe was already reaching into her right boot for the razor blades she kept there in case of emergencies. She launched the first at Irina’s hand; Irina’s second shot went wide. The next blade found its target in Irina’s throat.

“You think I wasn’t ready for you, duplicitous bitch?!” Zoe shouted against the pain and anger that filled her eyes with tears. Irina stumbled backwards, eyes wide, blood seeping from her throat. “I _know_ you!”

Sirens sounded from below. Their mark must have noticed the missing diamonds. Irina continued to step back until she teetered on the edge of the rooftop. “Bravo,” Irina said, each shivering syllable pushing blood out around the embedded blade. She spread wide her arms and stood a Christlike silhouette backlit by the street lamps beneath them. The sirens wailed louder. “I could try again to shoot you now: a goodbye kiss. But it will be more fun, I think, to see if you can get away with murder. Run for your life.”

She fell backward. Zoe followed her to the edge of the roof and looked down. The splattered mess ten stories below didn’t remotely resemble the girl she’d adored.

 

**blam!**

Irina watched the blood from Zoe’s body seep into the forest floor. She’d never met the girl, only heard her name uttered like a secret or a bad word when Abraham and Miss Richmond thought nobody was listening. But now that she lay lifeless, facedown in the dirt, Irina felt as though they _had_ met, a very long time ago. She wanted to reach out and turn the girl over, brush her hair straight, and wash the blood from her ochre flesh.

But the boy Hunter was on the run, and Irina had a job to do. She stepped past Zoe’s body and did not look again.


End file.
